A partnership between Western Carolina University and a Brazilian-based company could eventually result in up to 300 new jobs for the region — if Vale Soluções em Energia, as hoped, agrees to build its yet-to-be-designed turbines here.

A national search for a new Western Carolina University chancellor will start immediately following longtime leader John Bardo’s announcement this week he would leave the institution’s top post and join the faculty.

John Bardo, chancellor of Western North Carolina since 1995, announced this week he would step down. It’s been an extraordinarily long tenure for a university chancellor, and Bardo simply said it is time for a change at the top.

The “buzz bus” soon will be ferrying students from bars in Sylva back to the Western Carolina University campus.

A First Amendment battle is not what Western Carolina University senior Justin Caudell expected when he returned to campus this fall. But Caudell, who is editor-in-chief of the school’s student newspaper, the Western Carolinian, found himself on the other side of the interview more than once in recent weeks.

University administrators shuttered the publication for five days in late September as part of an ongoing investigation into allegations of plagiarism by three of its writers, including Caudell. Fellow college publications and other student media advocates rallied in defense of Western’s student paper.

Though The Sylva Herald and the Western Carolinian are still at odds about whether plagiarism occurred this summer, The Smoky Mountain News conducted its own investigation into the claims that led university officials to open the inquiry that temporarily closed the paper.

By Leon Grodski de Barrera • Guest writer

There are a lot of ways to spin Christopher Columbus’ accomplishments or his misdeeds, depending on which version of history you go by. Some call him a hero, some a murderer, many a discoverer and many a thief, and the list goes on and on.

One that you don’t hear so much is public relations guru. Whether it was intentional or not, he initiated one of the longest lasting and most successful PR campaigns in history, that of the dehumanization of indigenous people. With the goals of conquest, riches and spices, Columbus played upon the racism and greed of the king and queen of Spain, the members of his crew and the throngs of conquistadors who followed in his wake. Invisibility and marginalization of indigenous people paved the way for their projects.

From the first mention of contact in his journal from the first voyage, Columbus portrays the people — whom he calls “Indians,” thinking he is in India — as at once noble and empty, deft guides and ready-made slaves for the king and queen of Spain. Columbus weaves these ideas prominently through his journal, and this legacy, this habit of mind continues as a prominent thread in the fabric of greater American society to this day, more than 500 years later.

In “Reclaiming Cultural Ownership: Challenging Indian Stereotypes,” Shan Goshorn is determined to reclaim cultural ownership for Native Americans. In her artist statement, Ms. Goshorn, a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee, said, “History has proven that a way to successfully eliminate a people is to deny them their culture. We remember the obvious attempts of boarding school practices, but we can equate racist commercialism as an attempted genocide as well.”

Goshorn has created an art installation that draws a direct contrast between racist commercialism that necessitates the invisibility of Native Americans within greater American culture and photographs of the everyday lives of people of different tribes as seen through the artist’s eyes.

When entering the gallery, one is immediately struck by the dramatic contrast between the varied and colorful commercial objects presented on several pedestals inside glass cubes that are thoughtfully situated throughout the floor space. These objects employ native stereotypes and appropriate native names to sell goods and services neither owned by nor representative of Native Americans. Goshorn presents her black and white photographs, taken through the 1990s, one next to the other at eye level completely lining the room. It’s almost as if they are surrounding the colorful and seductive lies of commercialism with a black and white look at and affirmation of everyday life of native people today.

The photographs are a sample from the artist’s greater collection that are at once unique to this group of people and common to everyone. People represented are from many North American tribes, including Cherokee, Cheyenne, Yuchi, Seminole, Muscogee and Lakota. These people and tribes are as varied culturally and linguistically as the Germans, the French, the Polish and Spanish or people of any other nations who have different customs, religions and histories. As  Goshorn is part of the lives of the people in the photographs, she is able to represent them in a way that is snapshot and sophisticated document, avoiding the “sweep in and set ‘em up, size ‘em up and leave” shots that we frequently see in national magazines.

One may notice some trends in the objects. There are the wild-Indians-made-in-China-plastic-toys such as the “cowboys and Indians” action figures sets, some of which are packaged with pictures of non-native boys dressed up as “Indians.” There are the wildly happy looking team mascots and sports caps. Then there’s the back-to-the-earth food product, or better yet an Italian ice cream that has nothing even remotely to do with any native culture. Advertisements for industrial products, like tires, seem to use native names for their catchiness and ease of recognition. In the Unocal oil company’s sponsored foam-hand-shaped-Braves-souvenir, the continued connection between the empty use of native images with corporate goals is clear. The made-in-China-plastic “Pocahontas, Indian Princess” is up there in its implied racism with the stripper who is marketed as an “Indian Fire Goddess.” Wow!

Any of Goshorn’s photographs could stand alone, with their professional composition and unique viewpoint, yet their greater power in this exhibition is their cumulative effect. Grouped together they surround all the seductive and colorful lies put forth by corporations and their interests, using native images for the sake of creating money for non-natives. The photographs work directly against popular pigeonholing, mere dollar accumulation and simple stereotyping. As the black and white images show, none of these stereotypes have much to do with Native Americans as they really are and the contrast of the characterization of “Indians” with the multiplicity of real lives as seen in the photographs draws this to mind.

All of the photographs are particularly indigenous, by the nature of the subjects and artist. And some show elements of life that are unique to native people, or to particular tribes; Enos Taylor, Eastern Cherokee, is gathering honeysuckle vines for traditional Cherokee basket making; Russell Means, Lakota, protests the Cherokee Strip 100-year “celebration” of the Oklahoma ‘sooners’ settling tribal land; and Elsie Martin wraps bean bread in corn husks before boiling them.

In all of these pictures the content of what people are doing is special to their heritage and way of being. Yet the smiles, togetherness, accomplishments, struggles and love are universal.

You can see this through many of the other photographs: an elder, Margaret Davis, is sitting in her comfortable chair using her hands passionately while speaking; Nancy Bradley, Ina Driver and Melonie Bradley, women of three generations, sit together, the granddaughter with a warm, shy smile; two well respected multi-media artists, Richard Ray Whitman, Yuchi/Pawnee and Joe Dale Tate Nevaquay, Yuchi/Commanche are in a booth at an art exhibition. Director Mona King, Ottawa/Quapaw, and Curtis Zunigha, Delaware/IslettaPueblo are editing a show for television. Judicial Magistrate Charles Tripp is in his court. These people with joys, growth spurts, duties, generational differences, in their exposure, subvert the common questions one can hear in Cherokee, North Carolina, every day: “Where can I find some Indians?” or “My great grandmother was a Cherokee princess,” or “Can I take a picture with that Indian?” and so on.

And as with any other people on Earth, change is evident. The boy, Steven Ross, Eastern Cherokee, writes on a chalkboard words in the Cherokee Syllabary, reclaiming the language that had been forcibly taken from his family through the boarding school process. Junior Miss Indian Tulsa, Denise Graham, Delaware/Yuchi, gets dressed and prepares “cans,” a modern-day versions of turtle shell rattles for the American Indian Heritage Center’s Summer Celebration Stomp Dance Demonstration. American Indian Movement activists gather to support change at the United Nations World Hearings on Racism as a Violation of Human Rights.

The layout of the space encourages multiple viewings of objects and images, a back and forth between the vibrant colors of smiling, big teeth feather in the hair baseball caps, kitschy books about white women taking on native identities, made-in-china plastic warriors in canoes and large scale black and white photographs such as an elder standing in front of the frame of a sweat lodge, tribal council holding session, kids in school saying the Pledge of Allegiance and a grandfather adjusting his grandson’s clothing. The seconds that pass walking between the clichés of commercialism and the rare treat of visiting the individuals through the artist’s empathetic eyes allow for the time necessary to build layer upon layer of dissonant images, that when understood altogether incite an openness to change and the obliteration of the cliché.

(Leon Grodski de Barrera is the great-grandchild of Italian, Irish, German and Polish immigrants who came to the United States via Ellis Island over 100 years ago. He is an artist, writer and coffee man based near the Qualla Boundary in Western North Carolina. http://the-sushi-bar.com)

Check it out

The exhibition Reclaiming Cultural Ownership: Challenging Indian Stereotypes runs until October 24th at the Western Carolina University’s Fine Art Museum. www.wcu.edu/museum. For more information on Shan Goshorn visit www.shangoshorn.com.

Is going into business with a Brazilian company within the mission of Western Carolina University? Dean Robert McMahan says so, and he bases that decision on the university’s adoption of the Boyer model.

WCU formally adopted this new tenure model, which is based on a book by Ernest L. Boyer titled, “Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professorate.”

In his influential 1997 work, Boyer proposed scholarship should include discovery, integration, application and teaching. All four areas should be rewarded when considering tenure for professors, he argued.

The Boyer model, McMahan said, allows — even encourages — an “externally engaged university.”  

“It represents a broadening of the traditional university definition of scholarship to include application,” he said. “It is intended to broaden the scope.”

This means that professors seeking tenure can demonstrate other accomplishments besides the traditional route of being published in academic journals.

“Application” allows for service to the community. It is within this context that WCU leaders believe it is appropriate to meld faculty and staff with Vale Soluções em Energia in a public-private partnership.

A company with South American roots will set up U.S. headquarters on the campus of Western Carolina University in a partnership to design, develop and build turbines.

A public announcement about the deal is scheduled for next week. The Smoky Mountain News, under the state’s Public Records Law, requested and received a memorandum of agreement between Vale Soluções em Energia, based in Rio de Janeiro, and WCU.

Vale Soluções em Energia is a subsidiary of the Brazilian-based Vale Group, the second-largest mining company in the world.

About 20 Vale Soluções employees will work on WCU’s campus. The college will provide the company a suite of offices on the second floor of the Centers for Applied Technology building, said Robert McMahan, dean of WCU’s College of Engineering and Technology, called the Kimmel School.

Vale Soluções em Energia is operating in this country as the newly formed TAO Sustainable Power Solutions.

The company and the university plan to develop turbines to power generators that will use renewable fuel sources such as ethanol, McMahan said.

Vale Soluções em Energia and WCU in June signed a minimum four-year agreement. In addition to a number of confidentiality and intellectual-rights agreements, WCU agreed to appoint “as appropriate” qualified key company personnel to faculty positions.

Human-rights issues?

Any concerns about WCU entering into a business relationship with a Brazilian company that has global mining interests are misplaced, McMahan said.

The WCU dean said he was not aware allegations existed in Brazil and other countries of conflicts between Vale Group and indigenous people, environmentalists and trade unions. McMahan said WCU had not formally checked the organization’s background, but added that during the year or so of negotiations with Vale Soluções em Energia officials, he’d developed a positive feeling toward the company. McMahan said he believed that “due diligence” by WCU leaders has taken place, and distanced the university from the parent company.

“We are not working with Vale,” McMahan said. “Vale is not involved. This is VSE and their subsidiary, TAO Sustainable Power Solutions … there is no direct connection with Vale and their mining.”

Additionally, McMahan said, the work involving Vale Soluções em Energia employees and WCU faculty, staff and students is environmentally friendly.

Chancellor John Bardo approved the deal. The state Department of Commerce is aware of WCU’s plan to work with the company, the dean said.

One Sylva environmentalist, however, asked about the possibility of a WCU-Vale Group connection, expressed concern the university would enter such a relationship, even if — as McMahan stated — it were a tenuous one.

Vale Group is the largest producer of iron ore and iron-ore pellets. It also mines for manganese and manganese alloys, nickel, copper, coal, potash and kaolin.

“The entire coal cycle is a human-rights violation and an irresponsible environmental abomination,” said Avram Friedman of the Canary Coalition, a Sylva-based group that works on clean-air issues.

The plan

Though downplaying any connection with Vale Group, McMahan pointed to the company’s consumption of “enormous amounts of fuel” in remote areas around the world as a significant reason generators fueled by renewable resources were envisioned.

Additionally, the generators are supposed to help power the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, McMahan said.

The WCU dean, at Smoky Mountain News’ request, said he’d asked the company to contact the newspaper Monday. The company had not responded to this request for comment before press time, midday Tuesday.

A U.S. engineer working with Vale Soluções em Energia lives in Franklin. He alerted the company to the existence of the Kimmel School, McMahan said.

WCU, among other attributes, will bring engineering skills to the task of building turbines for the generators, McMahan said. The company intends to make significant investments in the project. A dollar amount has not been decided on, he said.

Ultimately, WCU hopes to demonstrate that Western North Carolina would be a viable setting for the company to manufacture the generators.

Within Kimmel School is the Center for Rapid Product Realization. Unique in the University of North Carolina system, the center is designed to help students learn how to apply theoretical knowledge to real-world situations, and to help grow the region’s economy.

See also: Foray into turbine business part of WCU’s mission, college says

Kimmel School is supplied with state-of-the-art equipment, such as a $150,000 scanner. The scanner was put to use recently in scanning antique furniture for Hickory Chair. This helped the Hickory company in its effort to reproduce similar-styled pieces for market.

“There are unique capabilities here that exist only in a few places in the country,” McMahan said, explaining WCU can help a company or entrepreneur move from “idea to application.”

During the past five years, WCU has worked with more than 250 companies and individuals in WNC and the Southeast.

Who is WCU doing business with?

Vale Soluções em Energia, a subsidiary of Vale Group, is a Brazilian-based mining company with global interests. Brazil’s government privatized Vale, previously called Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, in 1997. It now operates in 35 countries and on five continents.

In this country and in the United Kingdom, Vale (pronounced vah-lay) Soluções em Energia has recently spun-off into TAO Sustainable Power Solutions (U.S) and TAO Sustainable Power Solutions (U.K.).

A timetable is still being hammered out on when Forest Hills leaders will receive a formal proposal from Western Carolina University on annexing land for a commercial development.

WCU wants to develop 35 acres of its main campus into a “town center,” which would be leased to restaurants, bookstores, coffee shops and the like, as well as condos and a few university offices. Forest Hills has been asked to annex the land into its town limits.

Forest Hills Mayor Jim Wallace indicated last month that town aldermen were expecting to receive information from WCU soon on how the town could best accommodate a mixed-use land plan.

Tom McClure, director of the office of partnership development for the WCU Millennial Initiative, said there are some “internal discussions” taking place, and that it could be a matter of weeks before the necessary documents are ready for review.

McClure said he has prepared a draft, but that it is not yet ready for review. McClure said a 20-year or more development agreement is key. A “planned-unit development” would eliminate the need for each new business involved to get individual approval from the town.

Chancellor John Bardo has said WCU will ask town leaders to adopt wholesale the university’s design for a town center.

WCU’s desire to create a commercial hub and vibrant college town hinges on its tiny neighbor. Cullowhee is not currently incorporated as a town, and as a result, stores and restaurants can’t sell beer, wine or liquor drinks. That has proved a major stumbling block in attracting commercial ventures typically associated with college towns.

The Village of Forest Hills consists of fewer than 400 residents. Most are current or retired faculty and staff of the university. The town incorporated in 1997, mainly to prevent an influx of students from taking over the community.

Clark Corwin, a council member for Forest Hills, said he would like to see his town receive extensive feedback from residents before any decisions are made. This includes, he said, whether to allow alcoholic beverages to be sold.

He said Southwestern Development Commission, a state regional planning and development organization, offers a tidy process through the Mountain Landscapes Initiative that might work well for Forest Hills. A toolbox has been developed offering best practices and guidelines for sustainable growth.

“I think everyone is of a mind to have a public forum, but I want something more than just a public hearing,” Corwin said.